Do you use a dishwasher or hand-wash?

Given the shortage in my husband's paycheck now that the SS tax has gone back up, we are trying to think of more ways to cut. We have a dishwasher and run it about 3 times a week.

If any of you have switched from using the d/w to hand-washing, have you noticed a significant difference in your electric and/or water bill? I'm wondering if it's a worthwhile change, since with three kids we'd rather not spend time washing a million dishes every day (we both work). :)

Comments (7)

I hand wash. I run an in home day with 3 under 3 and then my own 18mo old. It's a PIA but the house we are in didn't have one and I never bothered to get one. Our previous house had one and I ran it 4-5x a week but since moving I never noticed a change in either of our water or electric bills.

We use the dishwasher and run it daily. If you normally only run yours 3X a week, I probably wouldn't bother because the added work of keeping the sink clear of dishes everyday would drive me nuts. I run ours double what I did 3 years ago and I don't know that I've noticed a huge change.

Both. If the dishes have been sitting two days or more, I use the washer, if less and for large items like mixing bowls, I handwash. Frankly the washer takes like an HOUR to run and I can handwash the same amount in fifteen to twenty minutes (just wash/rinse). So i dont' get why a washer is supposed to use less water?